May I ask a question of the people of this board? It is a bit involved, I am sorry to say.
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I came to this board to learn more about kitchen knives. Strangely enough, the thread that has taught me the most has been not the Kitchen Knife Knowledge subforum, but the "Youtube Knuckleheads" thread in the media subforum. This is because it has been my experience that the best way to understand someone is to listen to them when they are mocking someone. This is not an insult, a lot of those video's are horrific(especially those ones from expertvillage), it just seems that, when someone is being negative, it is easier to understand what they value, how they think.
In particular, around page 22-26, especially this post:
http://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/s...ube-Knuckleheads?p=82384&viewfull=1#post82384
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Again, this is the uninformed opinion of a neophyte. I actually taught myself how to cook through reading cookbooks, trying recipes from books and allrecipes, and watching Good Eats on youtube(I like the in depth descriptions, the science and reasoning behind what is being done helps my apply the lessons to other situations, and it is always better to see a technique, than read about it). Heck, I taught myself the claw, pinch grip, and common cutting motions through youtube and several books.
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I get the feeling that the users of this forum(I could be way off base):
1. Prefer the profiles of gyuto knives, with less belly, thinner, lighter blades that are not as tall.
2. Dislike the germanic profiles, seen in the majority of knives, from Wusthof to Shun to Rachel Ray's Furi(ick).
3. Prefer push cuts and tap chopping to rock chopping, view it as more efficient and economical.
4. Think the majority of video's teaching knife skills, as well as the traditional views of knife skills taught in class rooms are incorrect.
5. Dislike the dedicated kitchen stores, like Williams Sonoma and Sur la Table, viewing them as being staffed with people with inferior skills and filled with bad knife products.
6. Many(not all) view those who haven't worked professionally in kitchens as having terrible technique(I don't disagree ).
7. View knives like Shun and Wusthof, Global and Henckels, as flawed knives, for their germannic design.
8. Consider most people as having terrible sharpening skills and/or dull knives.
9. Consider the methods of determining sharpness seen in many youtube video's(shaving hair, cutting paper, easily cutting tomatoes, Murray Carter's three finger technique, push cutting through paper, nicking thumb nail with no pressure) as being incorrect ways to determine sharpness, due to the possibility that it could be just because of a wire edge left on knife and/or they are just bad methods of testing.
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With those(possibly erroneous) conclusions I have made in mind:
A. How does one cut in the proper way? Are there any video's/books with dedicated information on the proper way to cut with gyuto style knives, with different profiles? It seems that if I took any knife skills classes at schools, they would have the same information/teach the same style y'all view as outdated.
B. How does one correctly determine sharpness, in your opinion?
C. I chose "nouveau" purposefully, because of its connotations of "trendiness." These types of knives seemed to be very new. Are these techniques and designs superior, or merely a fad? I am actually curious. I would tend to the former, rather than the latter. It seems that the germanic profiles and rock chopping is easier to learn, but the french/gyuto profiles and styles are more efficient, if you have the skill. However, because of its newness, I thought it best to bring this up.
D. Because most sharpening video's are bad, it seems, how does one still learning separate the wheat from the chaff?
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Sorry for the length of the post and its terrible structure. This was the best way I could express myself.
I am learning to sharpen, I hope, correctly. I first learned to sharpen folding knives on my grandfather's badly dished whetstone, and tools on his belt sander.
As someone who enjoys woodworking, I fell hard into the you-must-have-four-or-five-different-waterstonesat-least-camp. Also into the sharpening-at-too-high-an-angle camp. Watching Murray Carter's, Dave Martell's three video's posted on youtube, and the video's of Tom from Japanese Knife Imports, I learned to use two(1k, 6k), at most three stones, and to lower the blade greatly, lift at the tip, etc. I am still nowhere near proficient, though. I can sharpen my knives to the point where they can shave hair cleanly, and push cut(not slice, that is too easy) paper easily; I don't know if this is the proper method of testing, though.
Full disclosure, I guess I am part of the evil empire, too. Being a university student, I got a part time job at Williams-Sonoma. I guess I am the bad guy, since I am considered the "knife guy" as I know the products, and am the only one that knows how to sharpen and maintain edges. I don't lie about the downsides of the more brittle Shun knives, though. I also, because of the discount, have shun knives, though I got a Tojiro Shirogami Gyutuo 240mm, that I am thinning. Heck, I teach the cooking classes. Don't know what that says about the cooking skills of the employees. :eyebrow:
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Am I in the right ballpark, or way off-base?
------------------------------------------------
I came to this board to learn more about kitchen knives. Strangely enough, the thread that has taught me the most has been not the Kitchen Knife Knowledge subforum, but the "Youtube Knuckleheads" thread in the media subforum. This is because it has been my experience that the best way to understand someone is to listen to them when they are mocking someone. This is not an insult, a lot of those video's are horrific(especially those ones from expertvillage), it just seems that, when someone is being negative, it is easier to understand what they value, how they think.
In particular, around page 22-26, especially this post:
http://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/s...ube-Knuckleheads?p=82384&viewfull=1#post82384
--------------------------------------------------------
Again, this is the uninformed opinion of a neophyte. I actually taught myself how to cook through reading cookbooks, trying recipes from books and allrecipes, and watching Good Eats on youtube(I like the in depth descriptions, the science and reasoning behind what is being done helps my apply the lessons to other situations, and it is always better to see a technique, than read about it). Heck, I taught myself the claw, pinch grip, and common cutting motions through youtube and several books.
----------------------------------------------------------
I get the feeling that the users of this forum(I could be way off base):
1. Prefer the profiles of gyuto knives, with less belly, thinner, lighter blades that are not as tall.
2. Dislike the germanic profiles, seen in the majority of knives, from Wusthof to Shun to Rachel Ray's Furi(ick).
3. Prefer push cuts and tap chopping to rock chopping, view it as more efficient and economical.
4. Think the majority of video's teaching knife skills, as well as the traditional views of knife skills taught in class rooms are incorrect.
5. Dislike the dedicated kitchen stores, like Williams Sonoma and Sur la Table, viewing them as being staffed with people with inferior skills and filled with bad knife products.
6. Many(not all) view those who haven't worked professionally in kitchens as having terrible technique(I don't disagree ).
7. View knives like Shun and Wusthof, Global and Henckels, as flawed knives, for their germannic design.
8. Consider most people as having terrible sharpening skills and/or dull knives.
9. Consider the methods of determining sharpness seen in many youtube video's(shaving hair, cutting paper, easily cutting tomatoes, Murray Carter's three finger technique, push cutting through paper, nicking thumb nail with no pressure) as being incorrect ways to determine sharpness, due to the possibility that it could be just because of a wire edge left on knife and/or they are just bad methods of testing.
------------------------------------------------------------
With those(possibly erroneous) conclusions I have made in mind:
A. How does one cut in the proper way? Are there any video's/books with dedicated information on the proper way to cut with gyuto style knives, with different profiles? It seems that if I took any knife skills classes at schools, they would have the same information/teach the same style y'all view as outdated.
B. How does one correctly determine sharpness, in your opinion?
C. I chose "nouveau" purposefully, because of its connotations of "trendiness." These types of knives seemed to be very new. Are these techniques and designs superior, or merely a fad? I am actually curious. I would tend to the former, rather than the latter. It seems that the germanic profiles and rock chopping is easier to learn, but the french/gyuto profiles and styles are more efficient, if you have the skill. However, because of its newness, I thought it best to bring this up.
D. Because most sharpening video's are bad, it seems, how does one still learning separate the wheat from the chaff?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry for the length of the post and its terrible structure. This was the best way I could express myself.
I am learning to sharpen, I hope, correctly. I first learned to sharpen folding knives on my grandfather's badly dished whetstone, and tools on his belt sander.
As someone who enjoys woodworking, I fell hard into the you-must-have-four-or-five-different-waterstonesat-least-camp. Also into the sharpening-at-too-high-an-angle camp. Watching Murray Carter's, Dave Martell's three video's posted on youtube, and the video's of Tom from Japanese Knife Imports, I learned to use two(1k, 6k), at most three stones, and to lower the blade greatly, lift at the tip, etc. I am still nowhere near proficient, though. I can sharpen my knives to the point where they can shave hair cleanly, and push cut(not slice, that is too easy) paper easily; I don't know if this is the proper method of testing, though.
Full disclosure, I guess I am part of the evil empire, too. Being a university student, I got a part time job at Williams-Sonoma. I guess I am the bad guy, since I am considered the "knife guy" as I know the products, and am the only one that knows how to sharpen and maintain edges. I don't lie about the downsides of the more brittle Shun knives, though. I also, because of the discount, have shun knives, though I got a Tojiro Shirogami Gyutuo 240mm, that I am thinning. Heck, I teach the cooking classes. Don't know what that says about the cooking skills of the employees. :eyebrow:
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Am I in the right ballpark, or way off-base?